Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 50, Issue 4 S240-S249, Copyright © 1995 by The Gerontological Society of America
Movements out of poverty among elderly widows
HH Dodge
Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.
Elderly widows are disproportionately in poverty in the United States.
However, past research has also shown that a significant number of poor
elderly widows do move out of poverty. This work addresses two questions:
What are the characteristics of elderly widows who exited from poverty, and
what is the magnitude of the increase in income at the time of exit? An
event history approach was taken using monthly data from the Survey of
Income and Program Participation. Some of the findings are: living with
family members is a strong predictor for the transition out of poverty
among poor elderly women; those who are permanently impoverished tend to
rely solely on food stamps and SSI; elderly widows from poverty with
relatively large increases in income; those who exited due to an increase
in pension income or gifts had increased their income significantly more
than those who exited through other sources.
